


The Problem of Sex

by aralias



Category: Her Fearful Symmetry - Niffenegger
Genre: F/F, Femslash, First Time, Ghosts, Incest, M/M, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 17:23:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'The twins worried about virginity individually, and they worried about it together. But their most basic problem was one they never talked about: sex was something they couldn't do together. Someone would have to go first, and then the other would be left behind.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Problem of Sex

**Author's Note:**

  * For [threeguesses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/threeguesses/gifts).



They were aware of the basic mechanics of the act. Julia wondered whether she would laugh at the wrong moment, and Valentina wondered how much it would hurt. The penis was utterly alien to them: a strange shape pictured in biology textbooks and on the walls of public lavatories. They knew their father had one, but had never seen it and didn't want to. That would have been weird.

They were more familiar with their own sexual organs. That is, Valentina was familiar with her own sexual organs. She had touched herself before, out of curiosity, in early adolescence, and found the area between her legs unresponsive, uninterested. This seemed to be a relatively normal state: Julia had confided something similar in one of their intimate night time parliaments. Julia had never said anything about a hot, wet, prickling feeling, though when Valentina felt it the night after their trip to the Tate gallery, she knew it for what it was. Arousal was licking at her, and Valentina gently disengaged herself from Julia's arms and crept to the bathroom.

Perched on Elspeth's toilet seat, pyjama bottoms around her ankles, she rubbed the throbbing part of herself in tiny circles. She closed her eyes, blocking out the white porcelain and the towels Elspeth had bought at John Lewis. She focused on the face of the young man who had spoken on the tube. Something was definitely happening. Warmth was spreading through her, beginning where she was rubbing, spreading up through her stomach, her chest, her shoulders, and down her thighs, towards her feet. Valentina rubbed until her wrist began to ache. Then she stopped. Gradually the warmth flowed away, leaving only a dull dissatisfaction. Valentina pulled up her pants and washed her hands. _Was that it?_ she wondered. She didn't meet her own eyes in the mirror above the sink.

She returned to bed disappointed and embarrassed. Julia was still asleep, but her arms moved of their own accord, pulling Valentina back into an embrace. Valentina lay quietly next to her, unable to sleep. After about an hour, she got up again and returned to the bathroom. She ran herself a bath and got into it, leaving her clothes in a heap on the floor. This was better. She sank back in the water, letting the waves caress her small breasts and the crooks of her knees.

The bath was large and deep, with gold Victorian-style claw feet. In earlier days Elspeth and Robert had lain in it together, more and more as Elspeth's illness drew to an end. Sometimes they made love, but more often Robert held her, massaging Elspeth's shoulders, or washing her frail body with a soft flannel.

Valentina lay in the bath alone, warmed by the water and her strange new desire. Eventually, as if she were not in control of it, she allowed her right hand to move from the floor of the bath onto the dip between her leg and her groin. This time she managed to bring herself to a proper climax before she removed the hand. _Oh._

"What were you doing?" Julia asked sleepily when she climbed back into bed.

"I wanted a bath," Valentina said.

For all her boy-chasing, Julia had never been aroused enough to sneak off to the bathroom as Valentina had done. The odd pang of excitement usually went away as quickly as it had come, not to be missed, much like the boys themselves. It was Valentina who was irreplaceable; it was Valentina's sexual organs that Julia was familiar with.

She was awake the fourth time Valentina tried to get up in the middle of the night. Not letting go of her twin, she asked, "Where're you going?"

"I need a bath," Valentina said, hoping Julia would let her go. _Please, let me go, Julia._

"You showered this morning."

"I know."

"So, why do you need a bath?"

"I guess I don't."

"Go back to sleep then," Julia said. She stroked Valentina's uppermost arm, trying to soothe her like an animal or a child. Valentina shuddered and Julia abandoned the stroking to wrap herself more thoroughly around Valentina. "Mouse? What is it? Are you cold?"

"No." Valentina turned in her arms, so they were face to face, noses an inch apart. _I'm going to have to tell her._ "We haven't talked about sex in a while," she said.

"No, there wasn't anything else to say." Julia's eyes widened. "Oh," she said. "Is that what you-"

Valentina nodded.

"And?" Julia said. "How was it?" She found she was jealous, both of Valentina having gone first, _It should have been me,_ and of the time Valentina had spent without her, thinking about somebody else.

"Nice," Valentina said. "Not at first, but eventually. And my wrist hurts afterwards, and my fingers smell funny? But I can't sleep without doing it. I've tried."

"I could-" Julia began. Her right hand was resting on Valentina's thigh and now she slid it up to the waistband of Valentina's pants. She wasn't really sure what she would do if Valentina didn't stop her. What did one do? _What if I do it wrong?_ But she was also determined Valentina wasn't going to leave again in the night. Valentina was silent as Julia's fingers moved against the skin of her waist: it was as if she had suspected this would happen. Julia's arm was already twisted at an awkward angle, but she pushed her hand lower into Valentina's pyjamas until she could feel the coarse hair that grew beneath Valentina's belly. She moved her hand lower still and both twins gasped as Julia's fingers found the wet folds of flesh between Valentina's legs.

"Is this all right?" Julia said.

"A bit higher," Valentina said. She wasn't at all sure if it was all right. Should she be doing this with Julia? They had kissed before, as practise, but everyone did that. This was completely different. It wasn't sex exactly, as either of them understood it, but it almost was. Elspeth, who had been lingering in a corner of the room while the twins talked, felt herself begin to blush as she realised what was going on, _Edie and I never did anything like that_, and went to hide in her drawer.

Julia's face was stiff with concentration and her fingers were tense. Valentina winced, _Too hard._

"Sorry," Julia said, looking stricken. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," Valentina said untruthfully. It wasn't Julia's fault. She moved away and pulled down her pyjama pants. Now she was complicit in the act. "I think it'll be easier now." To give Julia more space she looped her arms round Julia's neck. Julia ran both her hands up over Valentina's naked thighs and then down again.

"That's nice," Valentina told her. Julia moved one of her hands back to where it had been before and resumed stroking, but more gently this time. "That's nice," Valentina said again. The arms around Julia's neck were trembling now.

_I wonder what it's like,_ Julia thought, watching Valentina's face and the play of expressions flitting over it. Despite her earlier jealousy, she had no desire for Valentina to do to her what she was now doing to Valentina. She was simply curious.

"You can go a bit harder now. If you want," Valentina said. Julia pressed harder and Valentina grimaced.

"Too hard?"

"No. More?" Valentina's mouth opened, and she shuddered again. Her narrow chest heaved, almost like she was having an asthma attack, and yet not like that at all. "Stop," Valentina said eventually. "That's enough."

Julia pulled her hand back, and sniffed her fingers. They did smell funny, _just like the Mouse said_, but not unpleasantly so. She went to wash them anyway. When she came back, Valentina was pretending to be asleep and her pyjamas pants were back on.

Julia's technique became better as the weeks progressed. After about a month she grew daring enough to duck beneath the covers and lick Valentina where she had only been rubbing with her fingers before. Valentina tasted sour and tangy, and her hands clenched tightly in Julia's hair as she worked. It was uncomfortable, but Julia felt needed, necessary. She kissed Valentina once she was done, so that Valentina would know what she tasted like too, and, that first time, Valentina kissed her back.

The only problem was Robert.

It was obvious to Julia as soon as they met him properly that it was Robert, _Aunt Elspeth's boyfriend,_ who had caught Valentina's interest. She saw Valentina holding his hand and Valentina smiling at him. When she told Edie and Jack that Valentina had a crush on Robert, she noted Valentina's outraged denial, and glared at Robert next time they met.

Robert's kisses were very different from Julia's and Valentina didn't need to imagine he was there, because he was. _Does he imagine I'm Elspeth?_ She knew she shouldn't have worn Elspeth's clothes out to dinner, especially not Elspeth's shoes, which had crippled her feet so thoroughly that Robert had had to carry her home as he must have carried Elspeth.

She let him carry her, and she let him kiss her, she refused to let Robert touch her properly, acting on a strange sort of monogamous fidelity. Robert couldn't touch her properly until Julia had stopped, and it was almost impossible to extract herself from Julia. In a way, it was convenient that Elspeth revealed herself soon after Valentina had had dinner with Robert. Valentina could say, "Don't. Elspeth might be watching," and turn away.

For a while, things seemed to be just as they had feared: sex was inevitably driving them apart. But, in the end, it was that other inevitability, death, that did it. They had never really talked about death; it had seemed so far off.

Later, when she thought about it, Julia realised it was Valentina's death that had pushed her into a clumsy attempt to have sex with Martin. Martin, whom she loved, but did not desire. Martin, who felt for his wife what Julia had felt for Valentina.

Theo, who was like and unlike Martin in the way that Julia was like and unlike Valentina, was different. Julia desired him immediately, because he was young and handsome and had a motorbike, and for other reasons she didn't quite understand.

She let him kiss her that first day. He drove her to a restaurant and insisted they have lunch together, and then dinner, and then a long walk alongside the Thames. When he dropped her back at Vautravers, Julia said politely, "Thank you for a lovely day. Theo said, "You're welcome," and kissed her outside the door to her apartment.

Theo had only meant to stay for a day. He rang his mother's number, which was answered by father. Martin sounded happy, and told Theo he was welcome stay in the flat, as long as he cleaned the bathroom properly. "Julia's a lovely girl," he said. "I'm very glad you like her."

Theo did like her, and he liked her more the more time they spent together. He went back to Cambridge a week later, but came back after only two days, claiming Martin was worried about a gas leak.

He tried not to rush things: Martin had told him Julia was inexperienced and suffering a bereavement, but she initiated most of their kisses and sat in his lap while they were watching television, stroking the side of his neck absent-mindedly. In fact, with Valentina gone forever, Julia was quite ready to have sex. She told Theo as much when he broke his resolve and implored her to sleep with him before he went as crazy as his father.

Valentina's body had been soft and pale, the mirror image of Julia's own. Theo's body was darker and hard, covered in dark hairs, completely unlike anything she had seen before. Julia lay on the bed she had shared with her twin, naked and, now it came to it, a little afraid. She watched Theo rip open a foiled packet, remove the condom inside it and roll it over his erection. It was different to how Julia had imagined it: very little like the pictures on the toilet walls.

Theo leaned over her, he kissed her, and Julia looped her arms around his neck. She could feel the slick length of his penis against her thigh.

"Is this all right?" Theo said. Julia nodded, though she wasn't sure, yet, if it was all right. "Then," Theo said gently, "you could open your legs a bit wider. If you wanted to."

"Oh," Julia said, and laughed. "Right." _I guess that answers that question. _

Theo grinned, more sure of himself now Julia had lost that terrified deer-in-the-headlights expression. He repositioned himself, and pressed up against the entrance to her vagina. "OK. Are we ready?"

"Yes," Julia said.

She gasped as he pushed into her and then out: the feeling unlike anything else in her realm of experience. _This is so weird._ She turned her head to the side towards the window, and for a moment she saw Valentina sitting where Elspeth had sometimes sat. _Mouse? Is that you?_ Then Valentina was gone, and the strange feeling building in Julia's body identified itself as pleasure. She turned back to Theo and smiled up at him. "We're going to do this again, right?"

Theo laughed breathlessly, and managed to hold himself still. "If you want to… I haven't even finished yet, though."

"You'd better get on with it then," Julia said, and tilted her chin upwards so he could kiss her.


End file.
